I Played D&D For The First Time...

...And I'm not as embarrassed to admit it as I thought I'd be.

Backstory. My friend Martin (whose blog I would link to here were it not completely devoid of posts) has been trying for the better part of eight years to get me to give it a shot and I've resisted—partially because it just seemed too nerdy, partially because it seemed overly complicated, and largely out of spite. Recently, he asked me about playing again and I decided to stop judging it without trying it. Making no promises, I told him I'd give it a try over winter break.

So it finally happened. I rolled up a character and we played with a group of four, and it was pretty much what I was expecting. D&D is essentially playing pretend for grown-ups with some rules to keep things from getting too ridiculous. And by some rules, I mean books and books of rules that you will need to constantly reference to get anywhere. Also, there's math. More than you'd think for something people consider to be a game.

But then, as a gamer, I can't really criticize it for all those things. Any video game is a fantasy, although they're able to hide the rules and math behind physics engines and GUIs. And if we're going to compare, D&D has one thing video games can't hope to accomplish—legitimate choice.

In any story-based game, you'll hit a wall at some point. Typically, you'll hit a point at which you either complete the mission as written, or you fail, die, or stop moving forward in the game. Take a game like the Grand Theft Auto series. You're on a mission to kill someone. If you fail, and he gets away, you just fail the mission. That's it. Try again. Regardless of how involved you were with the game, the immersion just stopped.

So what if it didn't? What if instead, you reported back to the person who gave you the mission. Maybe you get a second chance, and maybe you fail again. Now, they're after you too because you can't be counted on. An agent for the other side offers you protection if you'll help them instead. Blow it for them, and maybe you've managed to piss off the two strongest crime bosses in town and all you can do is run.

Games are working on this, but the fact is the only thing that can make a continual experience is a real intelligence responding to the player. A video game can only account for so many choices, and players are always going to be able to punch holes in the linear narrative. The kind of AI needed for that sort of interaction is a long, long way off.

Because D&D (or any pen-and-paper RPG) has someone running the game, the game world genuinely responds to your choices. There's a direction the plot is being moved in, but the players often have the ability to hijack it as they see fit. The trade-off for the added freedom is the added work—you need to track your own inventory, statistics, maps. But with friends, the work part goes by pretty easily, and I think I'm going to keep playing.

I'm just not going to tell people. I mean, it's still pretty nerdy.

More on Madden

It seems the only time I post twice in a row, it's because I'm still rambling on about the same thing (and I'm sorry for that).  But this time I wanted to talk about Madden 11 specifically as a video game and post my impressions so far.


I've seen some complains in other reviews and forums about the difficulty leading to unrealistic play, but for me it hasn't yet become a problem at the default setting.  If you learn how to game the AI, then yes, it can become unrealistic, but I choose to play as though the games were real instead of spamming the same play over and over.  I've also seen complaints that the AI is too good (and on All-Madden difficulty this is probably true) but most of the complaints in that vein seem to be "my offensive line keeps getting mowed over and my receivers are always covered and that's unrealistic."  These are the people that I think haven't watched much football, because I've seen it happen pretty frequently.


Basically, on the football side of it, I'm enjoying it.  The game plays pretty well, with the exception of a problem with the controls that makes it almost impossible to call for a fair catch on a kick return.  It's obviously not quite the same as a real game, but I find myself getting just as involved; the game that ended with an interception for a touchdown in overtime was especially nerve-wracking.  The commentary does get stale after a few games, though--I play as the Packers, and in every game I have to listen about how Grant was traded for a sixth-round draft pick.  Better commentary would help, but it's not my biggest complaint.


As a football game, Madden shines.  As a game, it falls short.  Every game begins and ends with the same one or two clips of fans in the stands.  The same players end up being highlighted as key players.  Franchise mode gives you total control over your team for as many as 30 seasons, but the interface is not very intuitive and requires a lot of effort to really get in to.  For example, if I notice I have a pretty weak right tackle and want to check out the free agents, I need to exit the roster, then look at the free agent list.  If I find someone I'm interested in, there's no option to compare him to my current players.  I need to remember the relevant stats and check the roster again.  Then, if I try to sign the free agent and it tells me I have a full roster, I have to go back to my roster, release a player, then go back to the free agent list, find the player I wanted again, and finally attempt to sign him to a contract.  It's ridiculously overcomplicated and I expect that as the franchise progresses and familiar names begin to disappear, keeping track of your players would get even harder.

I haven't yet checked out the Ultimate Team mode or the practice modes yet, but I expect them not to go to far from what I've seen.  Fortunately, the gameplay delivers.  I got it as a gift; I mentioned in the last post that I've become a football fan, but not quite enough that I would have bought the game myself.  But for bigger fans, the game would be worthwhile either as a football game, or a franchise simulator that lets you play games as well as managing your team.

As far as how it ranks compared to previous versions, I can't really say.  The last version of Madden I owned was 2003.  If what I've said sounds a lot like Madden 10 (or even 09) I can't really see it as being worthwhile to upgrade, especially since the Madden team website seems to suggest they're planning on implementing some bigger changes in 12.  Maybe it's not worthy of the typical Madden hype, but it's a fun game.  Fun enough that my 9-2 Packers should be making it to the playoffs before the weekend.

Wednesday Night Football

Obviously, that follow-up post on Wikileaks never came.  But let's face it, if you aren't caught up by now, there's not much I can do about that.  So we're moving on to something a little less dramatic.

I speak, of course, of football.

I've been playing Madden 11 basically non-stop for the past few days now.  It's not because of the strategic elements that sucked me in to Civilization V, or the world depth that keeps me playing Oblivion and Fallout 3.  No, the game isn't all that great.  It's a football game, plain and simple.  It does one thing, and it does it pretty well (though other reviews would disagree with even that point), but this is not a game that has much appeal outside a certain audience--football fans.  An audience that I, somehow, am a part of.

When I mention the game, or football in general, the reaction is almost always that I "don't seem like the type" to be into football.  And I'm not into football.  I've never drafted a fantasy team and I have no idea what the advantages to a 3-4 defense are (or even what the explicit definition of a 3-4 defense is), but I enjoy it.  I end up watching more than I intend to every Sunday.  I have conversations about how Matt Flynn has a lot of talent for such an inexperienced quarterback and debates about whether the Vikings were ruined from the start trying to push all their talent into key players and neglecting to really balance their team.  And the truth is, even I think I'm not the type.

Football isn't inherently different than any other sport--people pay too much to watch athletes who are paid too much and sports media plays up the drama to keep everyone watching.  It's overcomplicated.  More importantly, if my team (that would be the Packers) wins, it does not in any way affect my life.  But I keep watching.  And now, I keep playing Madden.

As it turns out, I'm not the first one to notice this phenomenon.  I stumbled on to an essay Chuck Klosterman about football, which you can (and should, although it's pretty long) read here.  Basically, he points out that football isn't like other sports.  It's constantly expanding, and it doesn't need to leave the sport to do it.  Football tends to be ahead of the curve when adopting new tech, new trends in playcalling are constantly evolving, and even with the drama (Favre) that reporters eat up, it's the game that sells tickets and subscriptions to the NFL network. 

He almost goes as far to say that football is intellectual.  There's more going on than fans and non-fans care to admit.  And though I want to agree with him, if only to make myself feel better, there's also the possibility that the NFL media machine is simply too pervasive; it's supposed to seem important, and we fall for it every time.  I'd like to think there's more to it than that, though.  I remember watching football as a kid and only really understanding that the object was to get to the other end, and that making it past the CG yellow line was a good thing.  I didn't understand the point of running straight up the field into a mass of defenders because I only saw it as something that failed--when it succeeded, it looked to me like a different play altogether.  I didn't understand how a few yard gain could be a positive thing or why every quarterback didn't go the gunslinger route and throw bombs into the end zone whenever they could.

But at some point (maybe around the same time I started getting into the Madden series) I started really watching and picking up on a little more.  Eventually, I was able to have actual conversations with my dad after games, whereas before I only really knew if we had won or lost and didn't know why certain plays would upset him.  Learning the details granted me access to a club I thought belonged only to adults and jocks and the common ground of watching an NFL game has helped lead a conversation multiple times.  Maybe that's at the core of any sport.  Who knows?

At any rate.  Maybe Klosterman's right and football really is something unique and interesting that's drawn me in with surprising complexity and subtlety.  Or maybe it's just my outlet of choice to watch guys beat up on each other.  Either way, for reasons that escape my contemplation, I'm going to keep playing Madden and sweating it in overtime 21-21 before being way too excited about running an interception in for a touchdown.  And then on Sunday, I'll watch real people do it and be either strangely happy or strangely upset because the Packers did or didn't stay in the playoffs.  Life is weird.